


Most Conspicuous Bravery

by auclairdusoleil



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26862724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auclairdusoleil/pseuds/auclairdusoleil
Summary: “Good God, man!” Granby shattered the stillness without compunction. “Why didn’t you stop in Plymouth?”“Because,” James slurred, the medication the surgeon had administered finally beginning to take effect, “the message was urgent, and I knew Volly could deliver it a damn sight quicker than any dragon they have in Plymouth.”
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	Most Conspicuous Bravery

**Author's Note:**

> The working title for this was "RIP James". It doesn't really have any kind of relationship to the chronology of the series other than that I've only read the first three so far!

“And so,” Harcourt’s cheeks were flushed and her gestures wild as she concluded her story, “we had to walk a mile or more in the rain, and I swear my boots shan’t be dry for a month.”

Berkley gave a quiet _tsk_ , his gaze fixed on the brilliant blue sky which stretched overhead, unbroken save for three dragons determined to outdo each other in all feats of acrobatics. Laurence murmured some word of consolation to Harcourt and raised his eyes to observe the aerial antics. It wasn’t the thing, he knew, to wish anything like ill fortune on his fellow aviators but he hoped fervently that Temeraire would emerge victorious.

His breath caught in his throat as Temeraire performed a tight, elegant loop, shadowed closely but clumsily by Maximus and Lily both. Even on the ground he heard their groans of frustration, and Maximus made a playful lunge at Temeraire.

“Oi, you! Play fair!” Berkley yelled. Chastened, Maximus withdrew and set about practising his turns, cursing softly - for a dragon - every time his movements were hindered by his own tail.

“He’s too big, too big by far,” muttered Berkley.

“Why, do I detect a hint of jealousy in your voice?” Harcourt laughed brightly, sodden boots suddenly quite forgotten.

“Never in life,” came the sullen response, and Laurence thought it best to intervene before the Corps found itself with two captains out of action.

“An uncommon warm day, don’t you think?” 

Years in the Navy had bestowed many skills upon Will Laurence. Quick thinking was certainly one of them; he was prepared to admit that on-demand nonchalance was not.

“Only because you insist on dressing as though you were to be called before the Admiralty every moment of your life - take your jacket off and you’ll find it’s perfectly pleasant.” 

Laurence took a sideways glance at Harcourt, her own jacket a crumpled heap on the emerald grass and her shirt sleeves rolled up past her elbow, and was halfway to a rather ill-advised comment about the way things were done in the Navy when a cry from above quite shattered his train of thought.

He looked up, shielding his eyes with his hand and vaguely aware of Harcourt and Berkley doing the same beside him. All three dragons were calling for their captains, and Laurence glanced about with increasing anxiety until Berkley called “ _There!”_ and pointed at a spot on the horizon. 

Maximus and Temeraire were flying low, a smaller dragon balanced between them and Lily circling anxiously nearby. As they drew closer, Laurence puzzled out the grey and white markings of a Greyling, and his stomach twisted with the realisation that someone - undoubtedly the French, damn them all to Hell - had attacked the dispatches. A moment more and he heard Harcourt gasp, Berkley swear.

A steady stream of dark blood was dripping from the Greyling’s belly.

The little dragon’s chest was heaving, and soon the frantic breaths turned into stuttering coughs that threatened to dislodge the dragon from his precarious perch between Maximus and Temeraire. Finally, finally, they were near enough for him to see that it was Volly, eyes wide with alarm. The straps of his harness were slashed almost clean through and stained with blood, and Laurence forced himself to swallow back a wave of panic: _for Heaven’s sake, that will get you nowhere_.

James was slumped forward against Volly’s neck, his grey clothing blending into his dragon’s hide so as to render him almost invisible (and some small part of Laurence’s brain occupied itself with admiring the ingenuity of that design). Harcourt was shouting directions to the dragons, warning them to land as softly as they could, and then Volly was swaying on the grass, the larger dragons crouching to steady him from either side.

Laurence rushed forwards, the other captains close behind. He lurched to a stop a few yards from Volly’s side when he realised that perhaps only a half of the blood they had seen had been the dragon’s: the rest was cascading from a series of deep gashes in James’ leg.

“Gentlem’n,” James mumbled, fumbling within his jacket, “I brought something impotant.” He thrust a crumpled but undamaged letter at Berkley. “‘s for the Adm’ral,” he added, and promptly passed out.

Volly gave a plaintive whine. Laurence surged to his side, but Harcourt beat him to it, already hacking at the straps that held James in place with a short, sharp blade. He turned to Berkley.

“Take that to Admiral Lenton, and then fetch the surgeon and whatever men you can.” _And hurry, for God’s sake_ , he thought but didn’t say.

Harcourt had cut the unconscious James free and was struggling to pull him from Volly’s back. Laurence, taller and broader by far, hurried to help, and the two of them managed to get him down the dragon’s side in an undignified kind of slither - Laurence wondered faintly why he was the slightest bit concerned with the dignity of the motion. They settled James on the grass and Laurence went to unbutton his jacket with fumbling fingers, thinking to use it to slow the alarming spread of crimson beneath where James lay. Harcourt stared at him for a heartbeat and then turned with a roll of her eyes to snatch her own up from the ground.

As Harcourt set about tearing the deep green fabric into strips, Laurence returned to Volly, stroking his muzzle as Temeraire urged him to lie down.

“You will feel much better if you do, for you have had a very hard flight; and besides, the surgeon will surely be here soon.”

“James!” came the indignant reply.

Laurence added his own voice to the entreaties, but the strength of Volly’s will seemed proportional to the speed of wings. Maximus resolved the stand-off through the simple expedient of ducking out from under Volly’s wing. He caught the smaller dragon with his foreleg as he wavered, and set him down on his uninjured side with as much tenderness as one could expect from a dragon the size of a ship of the line, or bigger.

The sound of voices in the distance caught Laurence’s attention, and when he looked up he found Berkley leading a group of some twenty men towards. He hoped they had brought bandages, for Harcourt’s jacket was already a deep, sodden red.

***

“Word was going round in Gibraltar that they needed to get a message to Dover, you see, and they needed get it there fast.”

James was propped up against a not-inconsiderable number of pillows, his face pale and drawn but his expression cheerful, as was his custom. Beside him Laurence stood with his hands clasped behind his back; Harcourt was perched on the side of his bed, Berkley was hovering at its foot, and several other captains stood nearer the door. Granby, who had won his place in the room merely by contriving not to removed for love or money, was pacing in what little space was available, and the surgeon was standing watching all of them with a scowl.

“So I took myself over to their headquarters, and waited for damn near an hour in a room as hot as hellfire - for an urgent dispatch! - before they called me in and told me they needed this letter, this scrap of paper, taken to Lenton quick as I could.

Volly, bless him, was just about turning somersaults with excitement at the chance to show the world what he can really do. We were making record time, right up until we were just off Brest, when that accursed French patrol strayed out further than I’ve ever seen them before.

We made a break for it, of course, but not before one of them took a swipe or two at us. He was only a little thing, and fast, and so he caught Volly on his side and took a chunk or two of my leg with him. I daresay that between us we could have attracted quite a horde of bloodthirsty sharks, or… or leeches, or something of that kind.”

A heavy quiet had fallen over the room as James narrated the previous day’s encounter. Two of the more senior captains, men Laurence had seen but did not know, were whispering, heads together; Granby, to the relief of all, had ceased his pacing. The silence stretched out for a moment, then another, and James’ grin began to fade.

“Good God, man!” Granby shattered the stillness without compunction. “Why didn’t you stop in Plymouth?”

“Because,” James slurred, the medication the surgeon had administered finally beginning to take effect, “the message was urgent, and I knew Volly could deliver it a damn sight quicker than any dragon they have in Plymouth.”

With this proclamation, James sank back into a deep, quiet sleep.

The surgeon ushered them all out with no small degree of delight, going so far as to shove Laurence through the door. He left no room for doubt as to what he thoughts of aviators - even captains - entering his space without blood gushing from at least one limb. 

They made their way to the clearing where Volly was quite happily tearing apart a cow, hooves and all, surrounded by an admiring crowd of dragons. He was recounting his own side of the story to them between enthusiastic, crunchy mouthfuls, clearly enjoying the chorus of _oohs_ and _aahs_ which accompanied his every sentence. He accepted the congratulations and, most importantly, pats of the aviators with an ecstatic wiggle.

“It certainly sounds like you were incredibly brave,” one of the older dragons said, and Volly gave a snort of glee, repeating the word _brave_ to himself several times before he fixed the other with a severe look and added, “James too!”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm @audax-subdolus-varius on Tumblr!


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